Guild Wars 2

Rant Section
I would like to start by saying, i think the mentor NPCs are probably the best one in the entire game thus far, with Tybalt being the best done personality wise, but im not implying the others were bad. I found Forgal to be cliche at times but I loved him in the mission in Fields of Ruin when we confront the charr resistance camp for information, i feel his personality was spot on there. Sieren I think could of been fleshed out better, most of her traits were just told to you by Gixx and she kinda comes off as kitten in the actually story missions. There is plenty of feedback on them though, so i won’t wall of text on them.
Overall the claw island section could of been better, needed much less cut scenes, and a bit more action. i shall elaborate starting at the beginning.
The beginning is the same with every order, talk to Talon, then the guy on the wall, then Mira, fight a handful of undead, then go back and talk to Talon. I feel this part didn’t add anything meaningful to the whole experience, Mira’s lines in particular feel out of place (no thanks to her voice actor), and a rather immersion breaking anomaly happens if you are a sylvari when you talk with Talon, in that, Trahearne will recognize the Valiant and have a catch-up conversation, and directly after that your mentor will introduce you to him and its like he forgets everything.
Continuing on with the battle itself I found the flow of events to really feel like mud. Kill a few things on the wall because a boat is flinging enemies, then jump off the wall to go find Mira and basically leave her squad in the dust, at the very least i think Forgal would’ve had words to say about that if all the mentors weren’t so oddly silent at this point. The courtyard battle in particular kinda irked me since entire swarms of undead would just appear like magic inside the walls, even if that boat was flinging them inside it all just felt like they sold the Lion Guard off short. Then the inevitable sacrifice scene, i feel it was almost forced and un-natural, basically a cheap way to kill off the mentor. I have more to say on this farther down.
Back in Lion’s Arch i think the story takes a good turn however. I for one liked how every order got their section and it could easily coincide with the other orders as if they all take place at once, i feel future stories could benefit from doing this (in all fairness many of the story quests already do this to some degree and it makes the story as a whole a joy to do multiple ways) However, i will admit the Vigil one felt a bit tedious, can’t truly complain though as it is their mission statement for everything.
The retaking of Claw Island. The quest you choose before this step doesn’t feel meaningful during the battle i didn’t notice much difference between some some of them (was Gort’s weapons even present?) and my favorite pre-quest to this, The charr cannon team, didn’t even impact the speed of the dragons defeat. I felt the weakest part about this mission was the Pact feeling just wasn’t there, to me it seemed the Vigil were the main ones running everything, no matter what order you were, you had to do it the head on approach to light the tower and just duke it out with the dragon. (although i found the asura you escort to the tower to be rather well done)

Proposed ideal setting
I would just like to offer a better scenario that in hopes the story missions are included in their ‘Strengthening the core game" mission statement.
How i feel would’ve been a stornger Claw Island mission: We approach by boat, cannon fire in the distance and faint sounds of battle. Trahearne is on the boat with us and we do the introductions here,if applicable in case of sylvaris, (preferable outside the cutscenes as the boat is comming to dock). — This would set a nice sense of urgency to find cmd. Talon-- Talon would be in the same spot and rather casually tell Trahearne he has everything undercontrol and his speech about claw island never falling. I would like to see Trahearne become upset at Talon’s blatant dismissal of his warnings (Him being the Orr expert and all, and we all know this guy needs more emotion) and unsatisfied, requests the mentor and the player to join in on the beach to assist Mira (name unknown to us until we actually meet her). On the beach we would participate in one of the defend a spot from x amount of waves events but assisted by the beach patrol and cannon fire, this would go on like a normal event for a few waves but increasing amount of undead and bone ships in the distance would basically force the player to fail the event triggering a retreat back to the courtyard. Once inside Talon would bark orders about sinking the bone ships triggering the next event phase, the player would be allowed to choose between the cannons or trebuchets to sink them, but after the first three or so ships sank, more and more continue to rise form the depths while the cannons/trebs are also getting destroyed during the battle by counter fire (hulk being thrown onto the players location). At this point Mira and Talon start arguing over lighting the towers, with talon preventing them like normal, directly after the dragon would break through the wall letting the horde of undead inside and a piece of wall striking Talon (instead of some undead sniper from accross the map o.0) death scene would play out like normal with Mira winning the argument on lighting the tower. With the dragon still rampaging in the courtyard Mira takes command of the Lions Guard and the player group are tasked with hitting the switch on the tower, idealy the dragon would be scripted to harass the player at certain times during the fight up. After that all plays out we would just need to refine the sacrifice scene, the Lion Guard are in a sorry state from the dragon, so the mentor would basically be getting his attention while the boat leaves. Forgal would play out the same, with him staring down and taunting the dragon as the doors are locked behind. Tybalt’s scene would play out direclty after the tower with him distracting the dragon as the party heads for the door, he would taking shots at the dragon with his rifle, and throwing grenades while stealthing to a new location. Sieran would run out of the door with us but freeze it shut as the dragon goes to charge it, shattering the ice spell but leaving the door intact (with some visible damage), she would then plead for the player to just run for the boat as she continually channels the ice barrier while the dragon attempts to break it.
The next part back in Lion’s Arch plays out the same, i felt it fit in perfectly.
The retaking of claw island could play out mostly the same, but the assistance you get on the step before needs to have a larger role on this step, i personally would love to see the other order’s choices be present to making it feel like they are tyring to work as a team on this (they could be randomly chosen from all the different assists, rather then a set outcome) However, the dragon fight itself needs some work, different phases playing on the different strengths of the combined orders would be wonderful. This would also hopefully make Trahearns part less monotonous as he can say more then his 3 lines while he commands over the fight.
And that is my wall of texts, i thank you for readng it through.

I know what you mean, I agree with you on your mentor suggestions. I really wish that the Mentor deaths had actually had some variety, but after level 50, every storyline feels canned no matter what paths you choose and what race you are.