Guild Wars 2

As soon as Mordremoth was visible, the very first thing I thought of was Gachnar, from BtVS (Buffy) http://buffy.wikia.com/wiki/Gachnar
His minions were so much more terrifying than the real thing, and fighting him was really annoying. The mechanics were not bad, and I really liked the Blighteds, but I absolutely HATED getting stuck in the penalty box if I died. This whole business of not being able to rejoin your group unless there is a party wipe really stinks. I am really upset that I had to miss seeing Tybalt because I was stuck in that stupid cage-nest-thingy. The fact that he was even there made everything else worthwhile, except I never got to experience it, and yes I am kitten over it; STILL.

SamTheGuardian.2938:

Nice. The hardcore crowd has already beaten the final boss in HoT three days after release, the causal players are essentially locked out thanks to empty events, etc… Excellent job ArenaNet.

Please go eat your sour grapes somewhere else. Someone who has the time and inclination to spend playing through the story is obviously going to finish it before someone who doesn’t.
It’s like you’re complaining because a runner reached the finish line before you did, because you walked, except this wasn’t even a race. Good grief. /facepalm

From what I’ve played and seen/read, the story of HoT goes hand-in-hand with the map events.

In Verdant Brink the pact is scattered and as you search for the remaining Destiny’s edge in your story you help the remaining pact survivors regroup with each other so they can survive. When you then push into Auric Basin, you meet the exalted and give them the egg. However at the same time you are helping them reclaim their city from the Mordrem, as well as ensuring the pact has a safe rally point (Tarir). There are still some pact soldiers who crashed in Auric Basin and are confused but for the most part a basic camp has been established. Once Tarir is taken, the Pact uses it as a resting point.

Then when you push into Tangled Depths to continue to look for Logan/Zojja/Trahearne the Pact has now taken the offensive after managing to regroup at Tarir, replenish their supplies and restore the chain of command and so they push into Tangled Depths. That is why the whole meta event for that map is fighting that giant boss, it’s the pact now on the offensive.

Finally when you leave to go to Dragon Stand the Pact is on its final offensive and it’s the Dragon’s final stand (hence the reason why the map is called Dragon’s Stand I would assume). There, the pact launches an assault on the epicenter of Mordremoth and you fight the Mouth of Mordremoth. The mouth is most likely Mordremoth’s physical representation meaning you are fighting Mordremoth himself in Dragon’s stand.

The fact that in the final boss mission in the story you constantly see that shadowy black mask was basically a sign to me saying that while you were fighting this chubby little mordrem, the real physical representation of Mordremoth was what you fought in Dragon’s Stand. The black face and the Mouth look exactly alike. Of course since he can’t be physically killed (as they explained) you go into his mind to kill him.

That’s why it probably felt a little…disappointing. IMO if they had forced you to complete (whether success or failure) the Dragon Stand event before fighting Mordremoth in his mind that would have been more leading.

But yes I also agree that the ending was kind of like “Is that it?”. No conlusions, only more cliffhangers.

I played through as a sylvari and I enjoyed the few times Mordy actually did start messing with my mind, but I was really hoping for more… or maybe something else? I think I was hoping for more of a mental battle or ‘quick, hit this to save yourself from his whispers’ or something, I don’t know.
I did ch 16 with 2 friends; I go all evil and that’s it? We couldn’t even figure out what to do until my friend managed to kill me…. then I was fine for the rest of the fight? Shrug. I guess it just falls under being underwhelmed like everyone else. And the unanswered questions and lack of any sort of party just leaves it up to the next season, too bad they couldn’t at least leave it a little more resolved…
I enjoyed the story, up until the end…

Liked the story, the betraying sylvary twist in the party was amazing … but I literally asked if that was the end, cause didn’t feel like it… at least a congrats message would do

You need to do the DS run to see the real ending.

MaximillianVonSchatten.6278:

You need to do the DS run to see the real ending.

Oh I did, sadly did it before the story line ending so kinda felt like 2 different subjects.. one being the evil guy and another being the dragon. … never understood who was ruining the party …Voldemorth or the Dragon?

After the mission where you go with Taimi in the dead Asuran city, the rest of the story feels very rushed.

In my opinion there should be at least 5 or 8 more missions to actually explain some things about mordremoth, and the groups journey through a very dangerous Dragon’s Stand.

I mean you go to the last mission without even knowing the dragon’s weakness…

Other than that, I like the ending, but I’m afraid that it will not continue very well.

I wanna hope that Mordremoth is not really dead, just very weakened (still very powerful) and that we can have a new dungeon similar to Arah, where we really end him.
We don’t have any info about his body, we don’t have any info about corruption fading away, and the excuse that sylvari can’t hear him anymore is kinda cheap. I mean Trahearne could hear him, there might be other sylvary slaves out there that can still hear him.

TLDR; Story feels rushed after a certain point, but overall it will be good if they give us an Arah-like dungeon focused on ending Mordremoth.

I felt like the final battle was challenging enough for personal story content, but overall the whole chain felt rushed and short. Not enough time spent with certain characters to learn about their personas (except Taimi, they did a pretty good job there)
I think it would have fared a little bit better if they tied the personal story directly into going to dragon stand and hitting the meta chain there, as it kind of goes full circle, you kill the mental manifestation, and the physical.

I don’t understand complains of most ppl about it “abruptly ending”
[spoiler] We can all see in the ending cinematic mordy split from the scene and rushed off as 3 waves of energy probs to ensure his survival, going as far as to possess glint’s egg. He’s out of the throne, but not dead yet, and he’ll be back for more.
Here are but few proofs of above statements:

If he died then why didn’t it end with one big explosion, instead of 3 quite directed energy waves? Dead dragon can’t control his energy, right?

Why did one of these waves headed at full speed to glint’s egg? Doesn’t look like coincidence to me.

We didn’t kill Traeharne. Our character wavered just a second too long, as a result what we killed was resurrected mordremoth – no longer held in check by former pact leader. Who knows what he did in the crucial few seconds spent bellowing about his greatness. Some last ditch effort to save himself and setup and escape route for his mind would be most likely scenario.

And who says caladbolg would kill him? It’s sylvari “tech”. So basically dragon minion’s tech. So basically his own. Why would he allow developing of weapon that could kill him this easy?

So yeah, i don’t think we’ve seen last of mordry.
[/spoiler]

Eh, the constant bugs I wrestled with killed any interest in the story, but I don’t think it was something I would have cared much for, even if it went smoothly.

Starting with Rata Novus story was clearly rushed, pacing was off and i couldn’t belive before the last mission that this is it.

The last chapter was dissapointing – deus ex machina Trahearne and bullet spongy chubby Mordremoth.

I mean its an Elder Dragon of MIND. And we enter his mind where he is the omnipotent power. And he just manifests as a run-of-the-mill mob and starts smacking us in the face – very anticlimactic.

The last chapter inside the dream should’ve been some kind of puzzle with dynamic and random elements so you couldn’t make walktrough.

I didnt even get too fight or EVEN SEE the actual dragon, just entered its mind and for some reason i overpowered it in its own realm. Even Zhaitan was better than this. The story was extremely short and it was mostly about taking care of the emotionally unstable members of Destiny’s Edge again… I didnt like this at all. I hope living story will be better.

Larynx.2453:

Boss was mechanically fun but the boss’s appearance and the environment was pathetically bland. He looks like a generic mordrem, not an Elder Dragon. Why couldn’t we have something like the Mouth of Mordremoth or mr. Vine Dragon from the cinematic? Even saving the Shadow of the Dragon and using some generic creature in its place for S2 would have been better.

The ending was super abrupt as well. Mordy is dead, end. No closure, it just stops.

I agree with this. I’ve only done the fight once, but I thought it was fun mechanically. The setting had nothing to really separate it from other boss fights in the game. Since you’re in Mordy’s mind, I would have loved a level where you’re on a large platform floating in a void, similar to the Act II dungeon from Diablo III.

The ending story was abrupt, not in terms of the length of cinematics, but in terms of the emotional content. The story itself was focused on “find Destiny’s Edge” singularly, without any extra tidbits that would increase the suspense/tension around getting to them quickly. Personally, I was never sure that they were in danger in the first place, just missing. Therefore when we find Trahearne in his ugly situation I was kind of like “oh, that sucks” without any tugging of my heartstrings.

So storywise, there’s a lot of room for improvement, but gameplay-wise, I’m pretty happy.

Urosh Uchiha.9732:

Someone already posted this in another thread, but I have to repost it.
Expectations:
http://i.imgur.com/u5Ve0NL.png
Reality:
http://i.imgur.com/sx76e.jpg

I almost spit my coffee all over my keyboard when I saw the last image.,..great !!!

Actually, there could be a storyline problem later if you choose to save Zojja first or save who is that person name again? Thac something……….
It’s going to do a minor split on who is more critically damaged.

I didn’t like how abrupt the ending was either. I understand that they want to leave it open for the next living world season but they could have had a little closure.

Also I’m very upset about Trahearne’s death. He was my favorite plant man. I guess Cannach is now. Why couldn’t they have killed Caithe instead?

Shinigami.4051:

I didn’t like how abrupt the ending was either. I understand that they want to leave it open for the next living world season but they could have had a little closure.

Also I’m very upset about Trahearne’s death. He was my favorite plant man. I guess Cannach is now. Why couldn’t they have killed Caithe instead?

I tell ya, after playing through the story again as a sylvari, I actually have a little tiny bit more respect for trahearne….and agree Caithe needs to be fed to a Vinetooth.

Mord’s boss fight was the exact opposite of Zhaitan’s.
It was mechanically fun and interesting. But the boss appearance, environment, story, and lead-in were all incredibly lack-luster.
With Zhaitan, the fight mechanics were a complete flop, but it at least looked amazing, had an epic environment, and a strong story lead-in.

Questions that bother me. I’m sure these have already been asked, but gotta get it out of my system. Spoilers incoming.

Those questions aside, there were aspects of the story I liked very much, such as the redemption of Canach. Have the Sylvari themselves been redeemed? We shall see…

Well, not much that I can add that hasn’t already been said, but I feel it’s worth saying.

The expansion price threw me off initially but finally I caved. And having reached the end of it today, I regret it. And not just because of how much I kittenING HATE DRUID, after years of waiting for the Ranger to be able to use a rifle. That story was NOT worth the fifty dollar investment.

Aside from all of the tedious grinding for masteries just to progress (not to mention the ones I now need just to talk to NPCs), the story itself just felt… rushed. It wasn’t particularly terrible, though, and it definitely had some nice moments. But a lot of our characters’ decision making was terrible, Eir died in the most pitiful way unbefitting a hero of her caliber possible, and most sickening of all was the ending itself.

Now let me give it this: the first against Mordremoth? Amazing. So much better than Zhaitan’s pitiful showing. It had great mechanics, it was a challenging battle and it really kept me on my toes the entire time. That said, here’s why it sucked anyway:

1. Mordremoth’s design. REALLY? He looked like a fat mordrem troll. I wasn’t expecting to fight Mordremoth’s main body – in fact, I’m quite happy with how we faced him down because it made sense – but I was still hoping to fight a DRAGON, you know? Like the Shadow of the Dragon, for instance. That was an outstanding fight that kept things interesting AND had a great boss design.

2. Did we REALLY leave Taimi alone and defenseless in the middle of a DEAD CITY? Yes, we killed all the Chak. What’s to stop Mordrem from coming in there and ripping the crippled child limb from limb now? I would be okay with it if she still had Scruffy, or any way to defend herself whatsoever… BUT SHE DIDN’T.

3. Multiplayer. kittenING. MULTIPLAYER. I would like to be less angry about this, BUT I kittenING CAN’T. I did this once solo, and then later helped a friend do it. And when we did this final battle together, holy kitten. The exit instance thing available during quests was CONSTANTLY in the way. During the battle with Mordremoth, it was in the DEAD CENTER of everything. Every four seconds I had to click “no I don’t want to leave.” because that pop up flew up. Then it was centered on the reality rift during the final phase of the battle, which actually GLITCHED THE BATTLE somehow. We had to manually break Mordremoth’s stun bar because despite killing all of his minions and activating the rift. he didn’t get stunned and the rift became inoperable. FINALLY, we win, and the exit is located RIGHT ON THE SPOT YOU NEED TO STAND ON TO TALK TO TREHEARNE. ARE YOU KIDDING ME WHO DESIGNED THAT?

4. Finally, the epilogue. Mordremoth is dead, it’s a well-fought victory. There have been countless, tragic losses but they paved the path to victory and – what, that’s it? It’s just over? We kill Trehearne, there’s a little cut scene where we see some ley line energy flow away and… that’s it. There’s no celebration, no triumphant return, not even a wrap up conversation (yes, you can go up that spine bridge and have some dull uninteresting dialogue with your companions but that’s not what anyone wanted… AND FAOLAIN’S CORPSE IS STILL THERE.)

One of the greatest things about Guild Wars 1 was that after you beat the main story, there was always this sense of grand accomplishment. You would see all of your surviving friends and allies, there were grand rewards, even a Phoenix for Rangers to tame in Factions. You got your victory walk. You were a hero, and you knew it. And everyone knew it. You saved the world from the Lich-controlled Titans, you brought end to a centuries old conflict of rivaled factions and defeated the evil spirit threatening all peace, hell, you KILLED A GOD. And you felt the grand reward of it in each of those occasions.

What’d we get this time? A single piece of armor that costs us a transmutation charge if we want to use it, a greatsword that somehow became a standard sword skin (and, incidentally, let me stop that there – THE BEST REWARD IS A SWORD!? Some classes can’t even USE that! Go back to giving players a token to choose their heroic reward like you did in GW1! SO THAT THEY CAN ACTUALLY USE THEM) and some crappy, run of the mill loot.

In short, I’m SEVERELY disappointed in Heart of Thorns. I had high expectations for it, remembering how great every expansion in GW1 had been, but Heart of Thorns just leaves something to be desired. A lot of things to be desired, really.

Edit: Oh yeah, forgot a few things. What was Caithe doing with the egg all that time? Never addressed. The Mordremoth boss fight environment was bland, pale, uninteresting and most unforgivably of all, had a ton of death falls for no apparent reason. How did Mordremoth know about Tybalt Leftpaw (or your Order person of choice)? He died to Zhaitan.

The first time I finished it, I just looked at the screen and thought for a second “is that it”?

The music and the scene with the egg implies something’s amiss. Could Mordremoth have infected it, or is trying to?

Trahearne’s death left me feeling down for a few hours. Speaking of Trahearne…why couldn’t we just go into his head and kick Mordremoth out of there too?

Why did they have to make Caithe so utterly stupid? If there was an option to save Trahearne and end up killing Caithe instead, I’d have taken it.

Tanith.5264:

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Caithe never explains what she was doing with the egg.

Personally…Faolain deserved better. It’s made this story very painful to do. Trehearne will be remembered as a hero, but I doubt many will notice that the Court was fighting alongside them. I hope Chrysanthea keeps up her promise to do this more often and have the Court join against the next Dragon.

Nilkemia.8507:

Trahearne’s death left me feeling down for a few hours. Speaking of Trahearne…why couldn’t we just go into his head and kick Mordremoth out of there too?

Because a lot of people have an irrational hatred of Trahearne and wanted to see him dead.

Johnny Whoa.8126:

Well, not much that I can add that hasn’t already been said, but I feel it’s worth saying.

The expansion price threw me off initially but finally I caved. And having reached the end of it today, I regret it. And not just because of how much I kittenING HATE DRUID, after years of waiting for the Ranger to be able to use a rifle. That story was NOT worth the fifty dollar investment.

Aside from all of the tedious grinding for masteries just to progress (not to mention the ones I now need just to talk to NPCs), the story itself just felt… rushed. It wasn’t particularly terrible, though, and it definitely had some nice moments. But a lot of our characters’ decision making was terrible, Eir died in the most pitiful way unbefitting a hero of her caliber possible, and most sickening of all was the ending itself.

Now let me give it this: the first against Mordremoth? Amazing. So much better than Zhaitan’s pitiful showing. It had great mechanics, it was a challenging battle and it really kept me on my toes the entire time. That said, here’s why it sucked anyway:

1. Mordremoth’s design. REALLY? He looked like a fat mordrem troll. I wasn’t expecting to fight Mordremoth’s main body – in fact, I’m quite happy with how we faced him down because it made sense – but I was still hoping to fight a DRAGON, you know? Like the Shadow of the Dragon, for instance. That was an outstanding fight that kept things interesting AND had a great boss design.

2. Did we REALLY leave Taimi alone and defenseless in the middle of a DEAD CITY? Yes, we killed all the Chak. What’s to stop Mordrem from coming in there and ripping the crippled child limb from limb now? I would be okay with it if she still had Scruffy, or any way to defend herself whatsoever… BUT SHE DIDN’T.

3. Multiplayer. kittenING. MULTIPLAYER. I would like to be less angry about this, BUT I kittenING CAN’T. I did this once solo, and then later helped a friend do it. And when we did this final battle together, holy kitten. The exit instance thing available during quests was CONSTANTLY in the way. During the battle with Mordremoth, it was in the DEAD CENTER of everything. Every four seconds I had to click “no I don’t want to leave.” because that pop up flew up. Then it was centered on the reality rift during the final phase of the battle, which actually GLITCHED THE BATTLE somehow. We had to manually break Mordremoth’s stun bar because despite killing all of his minions and activating the rift. he didn’t get stunned and the rift became inoperable. FINALLY, we win, and the exit is located RIGHT ON THE SPOT YOU NEED TO STAND ON TO TALK TO TREHEARNE. ARE YOU KIDDING ME WHO DESIGNED THAT?

4. Finally, the epilogue. Mordremoth is dead, it’s a well-fought victory. There have been countless, tragic losses but they paved the path to victory and – what, that’s it? It’s just over? We kill Trehearne, there’s a little cut scene where we see some ley line energy flow away and… that’s it. There’s no celebration, no triumphant return, not even a wrap up conversation (yes, you can go up that spine bridge and have some dull uninteresting dialogue with your companions but that’s not what anyone wanted… AND FAOLAIN’S CORPSE IS STILL THERE.)

One of the greatest things about Guild Wars 1 was that after you beat the main story, there was always this sense of grand accomplishment. You would see all of your surviving friends and allies, there were grand rewards, even a Phoenix for Rangers to tame in Factions. You got your victory walk. You were a hero, and you knew it. And everyone knew it. You saved the world from the Lich-controlled Titans, you brought end to a centuries old conflict of rivaled factions and defeated the evil spirit threatening all peace, hell, you KILLED A GOD. And you felt the grand reward of it in each of those occasions.

What’d we get this time? A single piece of armor that costs us a transmutation charge if we want to use it, a greatsword that somehow became a standard sword skin (and, incidentally, let me stop that there – THE BEST REWARD IS A SWORD!? Some classes can’t even USE that! Go back to giving players a token to choose their heroic reward like you did in GW1! SO THAT THEY CAN ACTUALLY USE THEM) and some crappy, run of the mill loot.

In short, I’m SEVERELY disappointed in Heart of Thorns. I had high expectations for it, remembering how great every expansion in GW1 had been, but Heart of Thorns just leaves something to be desired. A lot of things to be desired, really.

Edit: Oh yeah, forgot a few things. What was Caithe doing with the egg all that time? Never addressed. The Mordremoth boss fight environment was bland, pale, uninteresting and most unforgivably of all, had a ton of death falls for no apparent reason. How did Mordremoth know about Tybalt Leftpaw (or your Order person of choice)? He died to Zhaitan.

I agree with everything said here. ArenaNet, please learn from these mistakes and make next expansion better The story doesn’t need to be longer, but it should have a closure, a conclusion. When you write a novel, there is always a final chapter that makes the end of the story satisfying. You had climax and a sneak peak to the future – the short cinematic, but forgot about the epilogue.

AriaFiresong.7023:

Personally…Faolain deserved better. It’s made this story very painful to do. Trehearne will be remembered as a hero, but I doubt many will notice that the Court was fighting alongside them. I hope Chrysanthea keeps up her promise to do this more often and have the Court join against the next Dragon.

I actually did notice that, and liked the level of complexity it brought. Makes me wonder what will happen should Kralkatorrik prove to be the next ED we fight. Will we suddenly find ourselves aligned with the Flame Legion?

I’ll address some of the comments I’ve seen in this thread about the story, and I hope my answers will clear a few things up regarding what actually happened. The following will have unmarked HoT spoilers, so stop reading now if you haven’t finished the story yet.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

If he died then why didn’t it end with one big explosion, instead of 3 quite directed energy waves? Dead dragon can’t control his energy, right?

In the cinematic we see four waves, actually, and those eventually split into even smaller ones as they move on if you look closely. Basically what happened was this: Mordremoth’s mind was destroyed with Trahearne’s demise, which simultaneously caused a fatal seizure with the Mouth of Mordremoth (the dragon’s physical manifestation) which in turn caused the Mouth to impale its head at the tree while it was fleeing at the end of the Dragon Stand meta. The explosion we see in the story’s ending cinematic as well as the cinematic of Dragon’s Stand are essentially the same event taking place from different perspectives (to an extent, anyway). The explosion was all the magic Mordy had consumed being released back into the wild with the dragon’s death, and the magic naturally split along the four main leyline routes in the area, thus leading to what we see in the ending cinematic.

Why did one of these waves headed at full speed to glint’s egg? Doesn’t look like coincidence to me.

One of the main leyline routes passed over Tarir, the city which the Forgotten had commissioned to be built on that location for that specific reason and which the Exalted had finished. The egg, safely in the inner chamber, absorbed much of the magic traversing through the leyline, and the rest of that route’s magic later went to the Spirit Vale in the Forsaken Thicket and stirred up the ghosts there (as per raid lore). We don’t yet know which other beings may have received a power boost as the three remaining routes have not been elaborated on in story…at least not yet. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of Mordy’s champions received a power boost since we know that dragon champions can absorb magic to grow more powerful similar to their masters and that they can still function and command lesser minions even after their dragon master’s death.

Glint’s egg absorbed much of the magic because the being within the egg is a dragon, and dragons naturally consume magic to boost their own power. The very reason it was important for us to safeguard the egg (as we learned in LW Season 2) was to not let it fall into the wrong hands and to allow the baby to absorb Mordy’s power, thus hopefully becoming a ‘good’ Elder Dragon over time (a feat Glint never managed to do due to her untimely death in battle against Kralkatorrik). And as Colin’s blog post indicated, this is one of the plot threads LW Season 3 will be focusing on as we try to determine if the eventual hatchling will be good or bad now that it has received the power boost.

We didn’t kill Traeharne. Our character wavered just a second too long, as a result what we killed was resurrected mordremoth – no longer held in check by former pact leader. Who knows what he did in the crucial few seconds spent bellowing about his greatness. Some last ditch effort to save himself and setup and escape route for his mind would be most likely scenario.

Unless Mordy is an incredible con artist, I somehow doubt its last words to us in HoT would’ve been “What have you done?” as we kill Trahearne. Considering how blatant it was about how great it was as it took over Trahearne (and thus forced our hand), it should’ve mocked us for what we did instead of being genuinely angry/frightened by what happened. The way I saw it, Mordy expected us to be overcome by fear of it being unstoppable and genuinely didn’t expect us to actually kill one of our best friends and mentors so bluntly like that to get rid of it. However, the Commander proved the dragon wrong one more time.

And who says caladbolg would kill him? It’s sylvari “tech”. So basically dragon minion’s tech. So basically his own. Why would he allow developing of weapon that could kill him this easy?

Mordy never counted on the sylvari breaking from its fold. The Shadow of the Dragon and its minions attacked the Grove for a specific purpose as seen in LW Season 2: to weaken the Pale Tree enough so it could not safeguard the sylvari enough via the Dream, which would then allow Mordy to begin seducing sylvari into becoming Mordrem Guard. Creating Caladbold was the Pale Tree’s idea, not Mordy’s, and she was pretty adamant about fighting dragons, going so far as to keep the origin of sylvari secret from most sylvari so as not to demoralize them (or worse).

We see in the Hearts and Minds story instance in HoT that Caladbolg lies abused near Trahearne. Had it really been a weapon commissioned by Mordy, surely it would’ve still been in tip top shape. Yet, for reasons not explained, Mordy wanted to break it and only partially succeeded, and this effort indicates that it was an object of interest to Mordy and that it had potential it was maybe curious and wary of, which turned out to be true after we used Caladbolg in the way we did in that instance.

amplitudelol.1409:

I didnt even get too fight or EVEN SEE the actual dragon, just entered its mind and for some reason i overpowered it in its own realm.

We do fight Mordremoth’s physical manifestation in the Dragon’s Stand meta event. For reasons, the manifestation is called the Mouth of Mordremoth which many players mistake for being a minion even though we have both the Mouth’s spoken dialogue and Laranthir’s conversation box dialogue (which changes depending on if you’ve completed HoT story or not) confirming that the Mouth is, in fact, Mordremoth and not just a mere minion.

Canonically (if we go by Laranthir’s dialogue boxes pre and post HoT story) the Pact fights the Mouth at least twice. First time this is implied to happen during Hearts and Minds where Mordy says “Armies cannot stop me” (if you’re a sylvari) and Canach comments how the battle raging outside is distracting Mordy from our little sneak mission. The second battle occurs after the demise of Mordy’s mind and when we question how the Mouth can be still alive when the Mind was slain, Laranthir comments that the Mouth is now the manifestation of the dragon’s mindless hunger and needs to be put down again (which implies the Mouth is now braindead although we still hear Mordy’s lines as it reacts to us during the fight, so the canonical state of Laranthir’s post HoT comment remains dubious).

We overpower Mordy in its own realm because our mind turns out to be far more resilient and powerful than Mordy had assumed. We not only managed to take a stand but slowly but surely turned the dragon’s attempts at demoralizing us (the blighted friends and mentors) against it as we made the blighted avatars our allies to help us in our fight. Mordy expected us to break down in fear and sorrow after seeing our dead mentor emerge, but instead that sight fueled our anger and determination to overcome the dragon, hence turning the tide in the battle in our favour. However, the Commander also relied on the help of Rytlock and Braham/Caithe/Canach, so the Commander wasn’t fighting the dragon by him/herself. Friendship prevailed over fear, basically, and kept our minds strong against the Dragon of Mind who thrived on using fear to weaken its enemies.

Tanith.5264:

Garm. What happened to him?

Unknown for now; at least I couldn’t find any reference to his fate in game. Likely a lead-in for S3 development if the writers feel like addressing the issue similar to how we never got to see Malyck and his Tree.

Caithe never explains what she was doing with the egg.

She did, but in a somewhat roundabout way. She said it was her new Wyld Hunt to take care of the egg, from which we can assume she was trying to deliver it to Tarir herself (like we ultimately did) and simply couldn’t trust us to accompany her back when she first stole it from us in Season 2. Whether this was actually a genuine Wyld Hunt or possibly Mordy trying to subtly manipulate her to bring the egg closer to it while she believed the idea was hers in a manner that happened to Scarlet and the Mordrem Guard as well (which would make more sense to me) remains unknown, but in this case I’d just go with the more straightforward answer (it was simply her new Wyld Hunt) since that seems to be the more likely story path the writers would take.

We left Taimi, without even her golem, in a dead city swarming with Mordrem and crazed insects. And we were completely all right with this.

To be fair, she did have all those machines she could tinker with and activate the automated defenses to keep her safe. Also, the open world events in Tangled Depths show us that Agent Zidl and the Order of Whispers arrive in the city later, activate the defenses by some hacking, establish a secure perimeter around Rata Novus and successfully defend the city (as us beating the chak gerents is canon in lore, and to reach the gerents Rata Novus must stay defended). This means that by the time we return to Taimi in S3 (as stated in Colin’s blog post that hints at future story), Rata Novus should be shown as a well defended place in a story instance, assuming the writers want to connect the story’s happenings to what took place in Tangled Depths Rata Novus meta.

I absolutely hated it.

In my opinion,the personal story ending fight with Zhaitan was much better than HoT because:
1. With Zhaitan, killing him actually made a bit of sense since the Pact weakened him by destroying his food supply, cleansing Orr, murdering Risen spies and champions etc. Also, magical cannons containing anti-dragon mechanisms were involved during the fight with him while he was extremely weakened.With Mordremoth, we barely did anything to weaken him. If anything, it felt like we just ran up and murdered him. If it was that easy, shouldn’t all the elder dragons be dead by now?
2. Zhaitan actually looked like a bad kitten dragon instead of some fat Barney the dinosaur thing.

Not to mention the fact that the “story” felt too short and quick. Which is something that shouldn’t be expected out of a good expansion.

“Oh but the last 2 seasons were us fighting Mor_”

NO. If anything, Season 1 was about stopping that megalomaniac Scarlet and Season 2 was about learning of Mordremoth’s existence. I didn’t feel like we were actually dealing with him at all.

The thing that bothers me the most is that Mordremoth is supposed to be an ELDER DRAGON. He has the ability to corrupt the land around him, yet he can’t kill one measly commander and some ragtag team? And if Mord’s the dragon that represents the MIND, I expect him to be really smart. But even when he’s LISTENING IN while Trahearne explains that we have to go into his mind to kill him, he doesn’t bother to bring the ceiling/vines down to crush the adventurers or spawn Mordrem minions to overwhelm them.
Before HoT’s launch, I was expecting Mordremoth to be a powerful, sadistic, clever beast that I’d love to hate. (Kinda like Sauron from LoTR) But he didn’t feel very strong and menacing at all. He felt more like a weak and stupid Alduin 2.0.
And the worst part? Arenanet kills him off on day 2. That’s just insulting, especially since it took us a year or so to finish Scarlet. It also makes all the sylvari racial tension pointless.I was expecting a good twist where Mordremoth faked his death to lure Tyria into a false sense of security, but the blog post seems to have confirmed that he’s not coming back. Absolutely unforgivable.

The main reason why I pre-purchased Heart of Thorns was for the story and lore involving Mordremoth, the Pale tree and the sylvari, and in the end I felt like I got slapped in the face.

I agree with absolutely everything you said. The same thing’s bugged me as well. Especially the story between Mordre and Zhaitan. The entirety of the story in HoT was finding Destiny’s Edge, not weakening Mordre and we just happened to figure out his weakness along the way which is (at least to me) pure nonsense. The place where he is most powerful is his weakness. It’s like Primordus weakness would be fire.
Another thing. Mouth of Mordre is just his manifestation. According to wiki, as long as his mind is alive, he can just respawn. And giving the fact that he was aware of our actions throughout the storyline it’s unlikely that he stopped being interested when we were at his doorstep. So why focus on the battle outside at all when the real danger was right in front of him.
Also, we killed Mordre with like 10 people. Less if you were soloing the final mission. So like 6 people is more powerful then an Elder Dragon. Lame. With Zhaitan it’s almost impossible to solo the dungeon, and you had entire fleet attacking him. And he was weakened. I like the expansion but disappointed in story. And if what you say is true, that he’s confirmed dead, that’s a shame and really stupid move. In GW1 and when Zhaitan was defeated there was a celebration. And I had a sense of accomplishment. With Mordre there’s nothing. It’ll probably come with the next Living Story, but to me this was something that had to be in the initial release.

Fjaeldmark.9043:

Nilkemia.8507:

Trahearne’s death left me feeling down for a few hours. Speaking of Trahearne…why couldn’t we just go into his head and kick Mordremoth out of there too?

Because a lot of people have an irrational hatred of Trahearne and wanted to see him dead.

Instead of adressing some of his flaws by making him a more fleshed out character and improving the voicing acting, Anet chose to just kill him off. I really wished they hadn’t given into the haters. I think he had a lot more potential.

Tanith.5264:

AriaFiresong.7023:

Personally…Faolain deserved better. It’s made this story very painful to do. Trehearne will be remembered as a hero, but I doubt many will notice that the Court was fighting alongside them. I hope Chrysanthea keeps up her promise to do this more often and have the Court join against the next Dragon.

I actually did notice that, and liked the level of complexity it brought. Makes me wonder what will happen should Kralkatorrik prove to be the next ED we fight. Will we suddenly find ourselves aligned with the Flame Legion?

Perhaps with his new powers, Rytlock will be on his way to being the next Khan Ur. The Flame Legion respect powerful magic, after all.

lynspottery.6529:

Urosh Uchiha.9732:

Someone already posted this in another thread, but I have to repost it.
Expectations:
http://i.imgur.com/u5Ve0NL.png
Reality:
http://i.imgur.com/sx76e.jpg

I almost spit my coffee all over my keyboard when I saw the last image.,..great !!!

Lol

I thought that a 1950s cinema ‘man in a monster suit’ would have been more appropriate. I was hoping for a souped up vinewraith and what we got was a second rate Godzilla. Slightly appropriate if you compare repeatedly trashing Tokyo with Lion’s Arch.

There has always been a feeling of things going too fast, Tybalt, Forgal and Sieran went before you got to know any of them. Then they ruined it by grouping them every 10 levels but that’s a different issue. There is a limited number of instances they can make in the time available and that is it.

The Mouth of Mordremoth was epic. If we had got something similar at the end of the original story I doubt if anyone could have complained. On second thoughts…

I was expecting something at the end, to return the remains of Caladbolg to the Pale Tree. She would have seen the end in the dream so would know what had happened. The only dodgy thing that Trahearne ever did was constantly repeat ‘this will not end well.’ Once that was surgically removed from his vocabulary he wasn’t too bad. In the end though he was right.

Playing HoT puts the reasoning behind Scarlett’s madness into perspective, would anyone have survived getting that much pressure? Being trapped with Mordy in your brain would affect anyone badly.