First I need to say something about the new allies we have as they are suppose to be part of the story.
The Nuhoch
I think the Nuhoch at first were suppose to be Skritt. Ok let’s be honest the Nuhoch Wallows are the exact same thing as the Skritt tunnels in The Silverwastes. But they are not because they were added before Magus Falls and that would cause a conflict by making them a mastery now. I mean we could use them before now we can’t? Or we can use the ones in the Silverwastes but we can’t without the mastery in Magus Falls? I suspect this happened because the Silverwastes were added before the real concept of mastery’s was fully established. So rather than have more Skritt deeper in Maguuma we got a 2nd Hylek tribe instead. Also look at what the Nuhoch actually look like – they look like offsprings of Frogger and Pacman. How exactly do they move through these wallows themselves? They are bulky and have small limbs so moving through such tight corridors would be naturally difficult for them.
The Exalted
These guys are a real mess. Ok first of all Tarir is exactly where The Falls used to be in GW1 so it’s obvious it wasn’t there before. So that means it was built around the time the Zephyrites underwent their transformation i.e. 200 years ago. So that would make it around the time Primordus awoke. But why only just then? If the Forgotten survived the previous awakening of the Elder Dragons why didn’t they built it sooner? I mean they had around 11000 years for that and they only take action around the time of the next awakening? Also Glint was a prophet right? are you telling me that in all these years she never could predict when the next awakening will occur? I mean I understand she might not be able to predict a specific event when she just wants to but seriously no hints at all in 11000 years? And what’s with the location? It seems it’s only for plot convenience. I mean I understand Rata Novus as Zinn did have his old hiding place in the area but I don’t get Tarir. We can argue that it was specifically to fight Mordremoth. But if that’s the case then the whole thing was based on luck – I mean if Mordremoth was one of the Dragons to awaken before the events of GW2 then Tarir would most likely be in ruin now as I doubt the Exalted would be able to hold off the Mordrem for 100 years or so not to mention the Exalted till not long ago were all hibernating or something. It seems they were just added to solve the issue of what to do with Glints egg once we get it back. Because if they were planed long ago then wouldn’t it be more logical if they resided in Glint’s lair? We visited it in LS2 and it’s where we learned about the egg. We could have met them already there and their leader or whatever would say something like “bring the egg safely back here and we will be at your disposal to help fight the dragons”. Also they are suppose to guard Glint’s legacy but they sure as hell weren’t much use when Glint was killed by Kralkatorrik. Wasn’t she more mportant than the egg really? You are not trying to tell me this offspring will be more powerful than her are you? Well more powerful I can muster to some extent but I won’t buy it if it’s going to rival the Elder Dragons themselves as that will be BS. And considering how many Dragon champions like Glint we killed already I don’t see how this baby dragon will be of much use. It seems to me the Exalted were just added so we can have a 4th Mastery line for the 4th component to make the Gift of Insight. I mean all the other HoT mastery’s have something to do with getting around better except the Exalted lore. Gliding is 100% all about that, Itzel gives us the use of the mushrooms and poison resistance and Nuhoch gives the wallows. The Exalted lore only really lets us use portals that are in Auric Basin and of course the enchanted armour in north path temple in Dragon’s Stand. It is in fact so useless that it’s the only HoT mastery line for which ANET couldn’t come up with a 6th tier. Oh but wait we need tier 5 to mine our collection items – yup that sure is an original way to make it look useful. ANET is just saying “level this to the max and please forget it exists”.
Right so now the actual plot
First Faolin and Eir – really now the only 2 that were of any significance at all ended up in a cage together? What are the odds? Another cliché plot really – 2 family members finally make up (Eir and Braham) but soon one of them dies. Also reaching her in time just to have her die soon after was cliché too. I mean she should have been dead already if Mordremoth really uses the blood of fallen victims as a nourishment for his army and same goes for Zojja and Logan. I understand Faolin as she being a Sylvari could be corrupted by Mordremoth – which she later is anyway. But really it seems she was just added there because it was the time for it yet the story writers couldn’t come up with anything better. We fought her in Twilight Arbor but she managed to escape so it was obvious another confrontation had to happen in the future. And with Mordremoth being the creator of Sylvari it was obvious there was no time like the present plot point. But the whole execution was very poor including her new form ripped off from some Japanese anime. I mean am I really suppose to care Eir died? Well there is one thing on my mind concerning her death but I’ll get to that later. Next we get a lot of deus ex machina first with the Exalted who we meet right after reclaiming the egg and it turns out their job is to guard it. Then with their help we find Rata Novus where we find out that each dragon has a “weakness”. I made a topic in the past about why bother fighting the dragons at all when obviously we could just build something like an atomic bomb and blow their lair’s along with them to kingdom come if ships with giant lasers are the way to fight them. You can read it here if you like:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Why-are-we-doing-all-this-anyway/first#post4608990
So I guess the developers noticed that too so they decided to go with a deus ex machina instead and that Mordremoth would just grow back if destroyed. But the execution again was very poor and besides there were many other things that coud have been done instead of this which I will mention last. Finally the ending or lack of it – whats up with that? Each campain and the expansion in GW1 had something like a celebration. HoT didn’t even have any end credits.
Lose ends:
For all HoT tried it’s best to cover as many of them like the egg and what to do with it when we reclaim it there are 2 things that bug me.
Malyck what happed to him and his Sylvari people? Their tree was suppose to be somewhere in Magus Falls so why didn’t we meet him or any of his people yet? It’s been 3 years since the Grove Sylvari met him so what’s taking him so long? I understand they all could be mordrem now and his tree is one of the blighting tree’s but no reference at all?
Magdaer – yes when I said there is one thing on my mind concerning Eir’s death I ment this sword. What happened to it? It’s been 3 years I understand a powerful magic sword like this may take time to repair but after all this time it’s still not repaired? Logan was suppose to get it but since Eir was the one that reclaimed it what will happen with this plot point now that she is dead?
Other plot examples
Use Orr to communicate with the gods
This is how I imagined the figth with the remaining dragons will go and I think it would have been a better plot than the one we got. First of since we defeated Zhaitan and cleansed Orr why not use it? What I mean is it’s the place where the gods decended to tyria. So it’s very likely it’s the place with the strongest connection to the gods and we could use it to finally communicate with them. After all as one of the options to find the heart of Orr we needed to summon one of the reapers of Grenth in his temple and we did succeed so using the temples to communicate with the gods now should be possible. If Zhaitan feared us getting our hands on an artefact of Abaddon who is dead then imagine just how much the dragon’s must fear the gods that are still alive. Well it doesn’t have to be like we will get them to fight the dragons but we could get advice from them and some power ups. Like they could grant our characters resistance to the dragons corruption – this would be also a good option to solve the issue of how the pact would trust the commander if our character is Sylvari. Also if we are going with the “weakness” deus ex machina the gods could be the ones to reveal them to us. And give us the means to open the link into Mordremoth’s mind once we reach the heart of thorns.
Livia and the Scepter of Orr
If she is indeed somewhere under Divinity we could ask her to take control of the Risen now that they no longer have their master. The scepter has the power to control the undead after all so we could use them to refil our troops. Ok so maybe she wouldn’t be able to control the dragon champions but at the very least a portion of the foot soldiers. This could also be done with other dragon minion’s like the Pale Tree could take control some of the weaker mordrem now that Mordremoth is dead. And later Glint’s child could control some of the branded once we defeat Kralkatorrik. Yeah that’s cheap I know.