Guild Wars 2

Previously in GW1 both of these monsters were more of a force to reckoned with but in GW2 they’re pushovers.

Firstly the krait in GW1 essentially needed to be killed twice: once before they transform and a second time after. However in GW2 not only do they not transform they no longer have any variation and possess little to no magical abilities. Also they now possess intelligence which they might have had before but idk. I think this is just a redesign but I’d still like the krait to transform maybe in a future patch.

Now the aatxe change is just mind boggling. One of the hardest hitting and one of the only invulnerable monsters in the game has now become one of the weakest (also I have no idea what a shade is but maybe it’s a cousin of the grasping darkness or something). I can handle the new look as it looks great but the tremendous loss in damage I just can’t understand. Maybe this change has something to do with Dhuum but we’ll find out.

I do get that in GW2 the player character is supposed to be stronger but this is a little over the top, also Abaddon > zhiatan (not imo : P)

If theres any explanation behind these changes I’d like to know.

This is pure speculation, but perhaps Aatxes are weaker when outside of the Underworld. I have to admit, when I first saw one in game, I was apprehensive to fight him, followed by shock at how easy it was to kill.

As for the Krait, I don’t know how to justify them. I think they were a big miss, simply because they’re so much like the Naga now.

Gregorius.1024:

This is pure speculation, but perhaps Aatxes are weaker when outside of the Underworld. I have to admit, when I first saw one in game, I was apprehensive to fight him, followed by shock at how easy it was to kill.

As for the Krait, I don’t know how to justify them. I think they were a big miss, simply because they’re so much like the Naga now.

I never thought about the naga but you’re right they’re very similar now also I forgot to mention this but the krait also didn’t used to be as water specific as they are now which also suits the naga better.

Regarding Aatxes, you’ll note something very important:

GW1 names: Bladed Aatxe
GW2 names: Aaxte, Veteran Lesser Bladed Aatxe (guess which of the two’s stronger? That’s right, the vet – the “lesser” foe)

The ones we fought in GW1, those dozens in a single spot, would be like fighting a dozen champions in a single fight. They’re the big daddy of aatxes – like how the Cyberdemon was the big daddy in DOOM games; these other guys are little better than imps or hell barons in comparison. The ones we see in the open world are pushovers and the Lesser Bladed Aatxes that we fight in two personal stories (one for human, one for Priory) are still weaker than the Bladed Aatxes.

So yeah, the Aatxes in GW2 are pushovers compared to the ones in GW1. But that’s because we’re not fighting the same kind of Aatxes.

Regarding the krait: they always had high intelligence (read the EN manual or the GWW article: “These semi-intelligent creatures are vicious and xenophobic […] The reports are incomplete at best, as survivors of these encounters are often too hysterical to recall any salient details.” – they were called semi-intelligent because the full scope of their knowledge was unknown to those silly land dwellers.

The metamorphosis (which, btw, the krait could be killed before they use the skill and thus only killed once) is an interesting bit. Something I personally attribute to the DSD awakening and them fleeing to the surface.

Gregorius.1024:

As for the Krait, I don’t know how to justify them. I think they were a big miss, simply because they’re so much like the Naga now.

I suspect that’s intentionally done. I mean, the old appearance hardly looked like something that’d come from the deep ocean. Their appearance is 100% a retcon. But they could have kept the old viper look – so why change to something more cobra or human/snake-hybrid appearing that’s much more like the naga? My thought: they’re cousin races. Like the hylek and hekets (literally frog-people and toad-people).

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Regarding Aatxes, you’ll note something very important:

GW1 names: Bladed Aatxe
GW2 names: Aaxte, Veteran Lesser Bladed Aatxe (guess which of the two’s stronger? That’s right, the vet – the “lesser” foe)

The ones we fought in GW1, those dozens in a single spot, would be like fighting a dozen champions in a single fight. They’re the big daddy of aatxes – like how the Cyberdemon was the big daddy in DOOM games; these other guys are little better than imps or hell barons in comparison. The ones we see in the open world are pushovers and the Lesser Bladed Aatxes that we fight in two personal stories (one for human, one for Priory) are still weaker than the Bladed Aatxes.

So yeah, the Aatxes in GW2 are pushovers compared to the ones in GW1. But that’s because we’re not fighting the same kind of Aatxes.

Aatxes could be soloed in GW1 (pretty easily) they were just much stronger than in GW2 so it doesn’t really make much sense to have to create a weaker mob. You also made me want to go back and play Dhuum 2 (DOOM 2) XD.

Good catch Konig, I completely forgot the specific names for Aatxes in GW2. Which leads to another mystery. Is it easier for weaker beings to permeate the fabric of reality separating the UW from Tyria?

Sad thing about the krait retcon… It was just unnecessary, ANet had a chance to make two similar, yet unique aquatic races.

@WonderfulCT: Sure, thanks to blind being constant and blocking being common. In GW2, blind goes away after the first attack that would have hit, and there’s so few skills that can block.

Bladed Aatxes would wtfrape GW2 players. (the notion that GW2 PCs are stronger is not true in a mechanical comparison sense!)

@Gregorius: I disagree on the krait “retcon” being unnecessary. You would never see such flamboyant feathers on creatures coming from the deepest parts of the deepest known ocean. It would just make no kittening sense to keep the old design. Mind you, they could have kept the viper look and remove those feathers – but then two of their forms would make no sense (Arcanoss and Devout), if not more.

Personally, while I didn’t dislike the GW1 appearance, the GW2 appearance makes a lot more sense – for both old and new lore. In GW1, there were krait which gained legs through metamorphosis, and then lost them with their next metamorphosis. Please explain how that makes sense. The concept of a form-changing race is grand, don’t get me wrong, but there’s not too much variation available if you try to keep it in the realm of reasonability.

@Konig forgot to tell you but krait need to be killed twice even if killed the first time its on the wiki and I remember it from the game.

I made a video to show how much weaker per hit an aatxe is from GW1. In the third clip I forgot how to use the war uw solo build but it shows just how fast they can kill someone as opposed to GW2 where they are pushovers. Also the second clip the aatxe essentially killed me in 1 hit right before it died.

Actually, that’s not the case at all. If you can kill them before they activate the skill Metamorphosis (which is very hard to do but very much possible), you can kill them once and only once. Similarly, if they activate the skill, the first version (which used the skill) dies a few seconds later no matter what – so if you see the skill activated, you can ignore that NPC completely.

And you seem to be ignoring the fact they’re not the same kind of aatxe. Bladed Aatxe != Aatxe or Lesser Bladed Aatxe. I think if the Bladed Aatxes ever appear in GW2, they will be champion rank, which can usually kill any player in 1-2 hits with ease.

That krait thing I just missread what you wrote so thats my mistake.

As for aatxes they could have just put the GW1 version in instead thats my entire point. I’m not ignoring the name change as its not really what matters. It’s just that they could have had the same aatxe but instead just put a weaker version in. Both can be killed solo but only one is a threat (we may see a bladed aatxe in the future). The mob is about as hard to kill as a firefly and the damage is just about as low. They could have just used a grasping darkness instead of making a weaker aatxe as it does not share the qualities that (bladed) aatxes have beyond the look.

This is much the same with krait calling them naga would have made more sense if looking at GW1

I think all that happened was the devs redesigned a lot of the previous monsters which is great as they made it into the game. I just prefer more challenging enemies is all.

Also I can’t edit for some reason maybe a site update or something but ahhhhh theres a mistake somewhere

Why would they put a foe that can one or two shot GW2 characters (take a look at your build, it isn’t like what’s available in GW2 at all) in a level 15 area?

An aatxe, by nature, is a “nightmare” – a soul that holds a lot of negative emotion and became hostile. They’re not some uber killing machines of the Underworld. They’re just natural inhabitants. So exactly why do all aatxes need to be Bladed Aatxes? TBH, if they had Bladed Aatxes rather than Aatxes, chances are that they would be weaker so that there can be many in an area. Keep in mind that GW1 was meant to be played in teams (solo’ing the Underworld, even parts of it, was not in the design intention and also note the video features a ritualist which wasn’t what Bladed Aatxes were balanced for – they were balanced for Prophecies alone, and the Live Team’s poor attempts to rebalance the Underworld failed miserably because they kitten it like they kitten Hard Mode); on the other hand, GW2 is intended to be ~85% solo’able. Only group events (including champions) and dungeons in PvE aren’t meant to be solo’able.

In other words, because the developers want the game to be solo’able, unlike GW1, they can’t go filling the world with extremely hard mobs – champions are limited to unique corners and group events. Bladed Aatxes in GW1 are solo’able solely because so many new skills were added since the Bladed Aatxes were made that the new skills made the Bladed Aatxes obsolete.

I mean, if you want to get technical, any mob of appropriate level in GW1 is hard to solo unless you create a build specifically for soloing (aka going against the game’s intended design), which is usually only possible thanks to new skills being added since the creatures’ additions into the game (good luck solo’ing Winds of Change content!).

As for the krait – actually, it wouldn’t make that much sense to call them naga in GW2. Because the culture is 100% different, and naga are in Cantha, while the krait were in the Unending Ocean and Tyria’s southern coasts. It’d make a tad bit of sense with Cantha expelling all non-humans, but do you think the naga would cross the entire Unending Ocean to live in Tyria, or do you think they’d just go a few miles off and become raiders in annoyance/hatred to those who kicked them off their lands?

Just a thought on the Krait. GW1 EotN was the first time we see the Krait in the GW Universe. Perhaps this was also their first time to come up to land. If this was the case then it could make sense that a race used to the depths of the ocean that could morph would continue to do that until they found a form which fit their current situation the best. They would then stick to this form for the most part. So in other words, they no longer need to morph because they have found the form that fits their situation for now. So I could see Krait of a different form appearing if we go into the depths of the ocean.

and remember that GW1 and GW2 is in a long time between

It could also be that the morphing ability was forgotten during a Krait civilization collapse.

Really wish Arena-Net would take some time to answer some of these threads but I do feel like the actual gameplay is more important so it’s fine.

As far as I can tell theres no actual “lore” explaining the changes in krait and aatxes. With the krait it was just a redesign. I can speculate all I want as to why this change might have occured in the history of GW but I’m not really interested in speculation. The devs just decided to krait a new mob but if I wanted to speculate as to what happened from GW1 to GW2 my answer would be the naga are pretending to be krait and we haven’t even seen the real krait yet. Although I would prefer an answer with some basis speculation will do.

As for the aatxe the devs just once again created a new mob not directly the same as the previous but with a similar name. My only gripe with this is I prefer challenge and I kinda prefer seeing mobs keep their difficulty. Reducing the strength by creating a new variation is fine I just prefer the old one. This one doesn’t really cause any problems with history as there was already variations of aatxes just odd that they would choose to create a weaker one instead of using a weak uw melee mob (grasping darkness, wailing lords, smite crawlers) although we’ll probably see more uw in teh futur.

It’s pretty much impossible for mobs to keep their difficulty from GW1 into GW2, otherwise standard skale would be able to wipe the floor with anyone but zergs. GW1 was designed for teams, and while GW2 has more skills per person, the abilities and range of skills are reduced, and the game is meant to be solo’able (in other words, it’s 100% intended for Aatxes to be solo’able – what you complain about).

What I wish they’d do is add some Champion Bladed Aatxes in the Shadow Behemoth event (chain). Since its a group event already, and very easy, a couple champs (or hell, even vets) would be welcomed.