Guild Wars 2

Spoiler below this line! Pass this line and you enter the SPOILER zone!

So with the current Episode revealing Balthazar there is something that just popped into my head when Balthazar mentioned he is seeking to gain back the power he had lost by draining the Magic from Elder Dragons.

That is the end result of Fissure of Woe and his battle against his half brother Menzies.

What if Balthazar is doing all this so he can gain enough power to defeat his half-brother Menzies because he lost the war against him and was stripped of his former power.

Balthazar use to have a Eternal Army but now he is not using it but maybe he lost all of his Eternal Army because he lost to Menzies.

We never saw the end result of the war between Balthazar and Menzies but now we may finally learn the end result in the 2nd expansion.

So what do you all think?

I’ve heard nothing but good things about people’s experiences in the fissure of woe, so I’d love it if we got a chance to go there in GW2

OriOri.8724:

I’ve heard nothing but good things about people’s experiences in the fissure of woe, so I’d love it if we got a chance to go there in GW2

Ya it was GW1 version of raids back in the day. Hard, required coordination, and team work with rewarding one of the most expensive and best armor in the game.

Still back on topic:

We know the Eternal Army consist of all dead followers of Balthazar. If balthazar has lost his old Eternal Army due to losing the war against Menzies then that would also explain his lack of care for destroying all life in Tyria because once he gains all the Elder Dragon’s magic he will now have to power to rival Menzies again and with the death of a entire planet of Balthazar followers he will instantly have a new Eternal Army to fight the Shadow Army.

This all goes back to the question “What will you sacrifice if you lost everything?” and for Balthazar it is the destruction of Tyria to gain back everything he lost back from his power, his realm, and his Eternal Army.

I believe that we will get the FoW in a raid form, since we seem to be heading in that direction from the Bastion of the Penitent.

• Deimos teleports us to another realm which could be a shadowy version of FoW.
• Deimos and Saul are shadow versions (completely black) of themselves when in the realm.
• Early concept art of Deimos depicts him having 6 eyes (Abaddon was allied with Menzies, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see this feature)
• Before fighting Deimos, Glenna will tell you that the area in that part of the prison feels like you are “touching the skin of Tyria” and “as if this place is the edge of our place”.
Maybe it is part of Menzies influence/corruption seeping into Tyria, similar to that of Abaddon (view of Istan from Abaddon’s Gate outpost).

Also,
• Menzies corrupted a few of Balthazar’s Eternals to fight against him during FoW in GW1, so he could just do that to any that are/were remaining.
• Menzies’ army within the FoW may have increased with Abaddon’s defeat, since he could call back a part of his shadow people that were deployed there as well as excess torment realm demons and minions of Dhuum.

Hopefully we will get to learn more about Balthazar’s father and half-brother, and why he carried his father’s severed head around when he first(???) entered Tyria.

Ogwom.7940:

I believe that we will get the FoW in a raid form, since we seem to be heading in that direction from the Bastion of the Penitent.

• Deimos teleports us to another realm which could be a shadowy version of FoW.
• Deimos and Saul are shadow versions (completely black) of themselves when in the realm.
• Early concept art of Deimos depicts him having 6 eyes (Abaddon was allied with Menzies, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see this feature)
• Before fighting Deimos, Glenna will tell you that the area in that part of the prison feels like you are “touching the skin of Tyria” and “as if this place is the edge of our place”.
Maybe it is part of Menzies influence/corruption seeping into Tyria, similar to that of Abaddon (view of Istan from Abaddon’s Gate outpost).

As far as out-of-game logic is concerned, the name Menzies always sounded to me like it was invented by combining “Mars”, “Enyalio”," and “Ares” — i.e., cultural touchstones for gods of strife and bloody slaughter, moreso than just, defensive war.

Deimos is, in mythology, the son of Ares/Mars (and a moon of the planet Mars). So, there’s that.

EdwinLi.1284:

OriOri.8724:

I’ve heard nothing but good things about people’s experiences in the fissure of woe, so I’d love it if we got a chance to go there in GW2

Ya it was GW1 version of raids back in the day. Hard, required coordination, and team work with rewarding one of the most expensive and best armor in the game.

Still back on topic:

We know the Eternal Army consist of all dead followers of Balthazar. If balthazar has lost his old Eternal Army due to losing the war against Menzies then that would also explain his lack of care for destroying all life in Tyria because once he gains all the Elder Dragon’s magic he will now have to power to rival Menzies again and with the death of a entire planet of Balthazar followers he will instantly have a new Eternal Army to fight the Shadow Army.

Balthazar may have also recruited souls/ghosts from the Soul River of Spirit Vale to become Eternals.

Ogwom.7940:

Balthazar may have also recruited souls/ghosts from the Soul River of Spirit Vale to become Eternals.

Well he lost all his old powers so I am guessing something is blocking his path or he thinks about going back there later once Tyria is destroyed because by then there will be far more souls to recuit at a plant scale.

If he needs a new Eternal Army strong enough to beat the Shadow Army without expose his actions to Menzies then he may be looking at a more mass recruit before risking exposing his actions to Menzies so that Menzies does not send someone to eliminate Balthazar in his weakened state.

I liked FoW in gw1 because it wasn’t so hard that only the best could complete it. Also there was mob diversity making it more interesting.

perilisk.1874:

Ogwom.7940:

I believe that we will get the FoW in a raid form, since we seem to be heading in that direction from the Bastion of the Penitent.

• Deimos teleports us to another realm which could be a shadowy version of FoW.
• Deimos and Saul are shadow versions (completely black) of themselves when in the realm.
• Early concept art of Deimos depicts him having 6 eyes (Abaddon was allied with Menzies, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see this feature)
• Before fighting Deimos, Glenna will tell you that the area in that part of the prison feels like you are “touching the skin of Tyria” and “as if this place is the edge of our place”.
Maybe it is part of Menzies influence/corruption seeping into Tyria, similar to that of Abaddon (view of Istan from Abaddon’s Gate outpost).

As far as out-of-game logic is concerned, the name Menzies always sounded to me like it was invented by combining “Mars”, “Enyalio”," and “Ares” — i.e., cultural touchstones for gods of strife and bloody slaughter, moreso than just, defensive war.

Deimos is, in mythology, the son of Ares/Mars (and a moon of the planet Mars). So, there’s that.

But why would the mursaat employ a follower/minion of Menzies to torment Saul?

Most likely, Deimos was just a standard torment demon which had once allied themselves with Abaddon.

(Side note: Six Eyes is a very common theme throughout GW1; from jade armors to abaddon to dryders, and even some titans had six eyes; it seems that some artists at ArenaNet views “six eyes” as “very demonic and evil”)

Ogwom.7940:

Balthazar may have also recruited souls/ghosts from the Soul River of Spirit Vale to become Eternals.

The river of souls in Spirit Vale is a very recent (read: post-Mordremoth’s death) development which is just the movement of the many thousand souls killed atop of the Maguuma Bloodstone ripped free from the explosion of magic upon Mordremoth’s death.

No relation to any of the gods or the Eternals, who were the souls of faithfuls of Balthazar back in GW1.

Here’s one thing to keep in mind when considering who weakened Balthazar….he said “They”. As in plural.

Fissure of Woe is coming to the game. Whether as an explorable map or more likely as a raid. A while back WoodenPotatoes did a series on Tyria 3D which took a look at exploring some of the inaccessible maps. I remember seeing the little arena where we fight Caudecus in one of his videos loooong before the chapter about Caudecus was released. In that same series, he also explored a map that looked a lot like the Fissure of Woe, complete with a model of the Eternal Forgemaster as well. So if the Caudecus map made it into the game, it is likely (very very likely given the recent events in the living story) that we will be going to the Fissure of Woe.

The Greyhawk.9107:

Here’s one thing to keep in mind when considering who weakened Balthazar….he said “They”. As in plural.

Yea but they could be anything. Could be the other gods, could be the elder dragons, could be menzies teamed up with someone, could be another faction we haven’t even been introduced to yet.

Vesuvius.9874:

Fissure of Woe is coming to the game. Whether as an explorable map or more likely as a raid. A while back WoodenPotatoes did a series on Tyria 3D which took a look at exploring some of the inaccessible maps. I remember seeing the little arena where we fight Caudecus in one of his videos loooong before the chapter about Caudecus was released. In that same series, he also explored a map that looked a lot like the Fissure of Woe, complete with a model of the Eternal Forgemaster as well. So if the Caudecus map made it into the game, it is likely (very very likely given the recent events in the living story) that we will be going to the Fissure of Woe.

That’s almost as elaborate as:
Oh, there’s a heart task that requires me to kill spiders, and there’s even a spider Webby Mom boss, that means that the deposed god Arachnea is now confirmed, and we go back to Abaddon’s roots, and things are going to go wild with spiders now!

Amaimon.7823:

Vesuvius.9874:

Fissure of Woe is coming to the game. Whether as an explorable map or more likely as a raid. A while back WoodenPotatoes did a series on Tyria 3D which took a look at exploring some of the inaccessible maps. I remember seeing the little arena where we fight Caudecus in one of his videos loooong before the chapter about Caudecus was released. In that same series, he also explored a map that looked a lot like the Fissure of Woe, complete with a model of the Eternal Forgemaster as well. So if the Caudecus map made it into the game, it is likely (very very likely given the recent events in the living story) that we will be going to the Fissure of Woe.

That’s almost as elaborate as:
Oh, there’s a heart task that requires me to kill spiders, and there’s even a spider Webby Mom boss, that means that the deposed god Arachnea is now confirmed, and we go back to Abaddon’s roots, and things are going to go wild with spiders now!

On the contrary, the Caudecus boss fight map with the many faces actually did end up going into the game. This is an irrefutable fact. There was enough evidence in game at the time about White Mantle activity and their link to Caudecus. Going by that same logic, we now have confirmation of Balthazar in GW2 whose domain actually is the Fissure of Woe (an inaccessible map that exists right now in our GW2 client). Again, all facts.

Your example points to nothing in game right now that would suggest the introduction of Arachnia. There are no mentions of Arachnia or any suggestions that Webby has any links or even remote connections to Arachnia. Heck, nothing even in the dat file. So I’d say my speculation is pretty elaborate.

IIRC, it was confirmed that the FoW map was created by a dev in her spare time as a way to practice with the dev tools available at that time, so I don’t think it’s existence points to anything at all. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to retrace the source…

EdwinLi.1284:

Spoiler below this line! Pass this line and you enter the SPOILER zone!

---

So with the current Episode revealing Balthazar there is something that just popped into my head when Balthazar mentioned he is seeking to gain back the power he had lost by draining the Magic from Elder Dragons.

That is the end result of Fissure of Woe and his battle against his half brother Menzies.

What if Balthazar is doing all this so he can gain enough power to defeat his half-brother Menzies because he lost the war against him and was stripped of his former power.

Balthazar use to have a Eternal Army but now he is not using it but maybe he lost all of his Eternal Army because he lost to Menzies.

We never saw the end result of the war between Balthazar and Menzies but now we may finally learn the end result in the 2nd expansion.

So what do you all think?

His statement of saying “There is no honor in war” could be admitting to that defeat, maybe? Menzies cheated his way to victory.

Ngeluz.4860:

His statement of saying “There is no honor in war” could be admitting to that defeat, maybe? Menzies cheated his way to victory.

Yep, maybe the consequences of defeat are causing him to question whether an honorable loss is really all that much better than a dishonorable victory, if the stakes are high enough?

There are lots of storylines revolving around characters losing their faith in gods, but not nearly as many about gods losing their faith in their own beliefs.

perilisk.1874:

Ngeluz.4860:

His statement of saying “There is no honor in war” could be admitting to that defeat, maybe? Menzies cheated his way to victory.

Yep, maybe the consequences of defeat are causing him to question whether an honorable loss is really all that much better than a dishonorable victory, if the stakes are high enough?

There are lots of storylines revolving around characters losing their faith in gods, but not nearly as many about gods losing their faith in their own beliefs.

OOOOooo that last part of “gods losing their faith in their own belief” is good writing material for the LS or any story! I hope devs, content creators, artist and writers from the GW2 teams are reading this, they could get good inspiration from it!

The Greyhawk.9107:

Here’s one thing to keep in mind when considering who weakened Balthazar….he said “They”. As in plural.

Not necessarily. “They” is often used to refer to a gender neutral individual – as it is more polite than saying “it” in the English language, as “it” is too often used to refer to an object and you know us Americanos and their objectivity fetish.

Many folks do use “he” or “her” instead (“he” being more often due to patriarchal society), so it’s a less common version of referring to an individual, but using “they” and “them” can be and is used to refer to an individual when one doesn’t want to give away gender (or does not know gender).

Vesuvius.9874:

Fissure of Woe is coming to the game. Whether as an explorable map or more likely as a raid. A while back WoodenPotatoes did a series on Tyria 3D which took a look at exploring some of the inaccessible maps.

That map had actually been confirmed to just be a once-QA-now-developer toying around with the tools. This is why the map has so many Orrian assets and even uses the old dead-Zhaitan model.

This map was also why she (iirc the QA worker then was a she, though I don’t recall the name) was made into a dev, because it was so well done.

That map, unlike the Caudecus face dungeon, has no bearing on intended use. While that was made long before Episode 4 (or even Season 3), it was always planned that we would fight Caudecus. There’s probably a good chance that they intended us to kill Caudecus in the CM dungeon – like we did with Kudu and Gaheron – but they opted against it and thus that face dungeon was left unused for years.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Vesuvius.9874:

Fissure of Woe is coming to the game. Whether as an explorable map or more likely as a raid. A while back WoodenPotatoes did a series on Tyria 3D which took a look at exploring some of the inaccessible maps.

That map had actually been confirmed to just be a once-QA-now-developer toying around with the tools. This is why the map has so many Orrian assets and even uses the old dead-Zhaitan model.

Yes the current inaccessible FoW map reuses some models and it most likely will end up looking different from what we saw in Tyria 3D, that is, no more reused Orrian assets. This was the case with Lake Doric which was featured in Tyria 3D and when it finally got included in the game, it too was different.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

That map, unlike the Caudecus face dungeon, has no bearing on intended use. While that was made long before Episode 4 (or even Season 3), it was always planned that we would fight Caudecus. There’s probably a good chance that they intended us to kill Caudecus in the CM dungeon – like we did with Kudu and Gaheron – but they opted against it and thus that face dungeon was left unused for years.

We do have a reason now though with the introduction of Balthazar. FoW is his realm.

Maybe.

But the existence of the map in the dat files is by far not even an inkling of reason to believe we’d go to the Fissure of Woe. Unlike the Caudecus face dungeon, which was even in the game since release as it was part of the dungeon’s actual zone.

Though I’m doubtful we’ll go to the Fissure of Woe at all. Based on lore, humans had been looking for the gods, and their realms would have been among the first they’d look – we know they have some tenuous access to the realms still, as we see Priestess Rhie pull a soul from the Underworld during the human storyline.

This would mean that Balthazar hadn’t been to his own realm in 250 years, so why would we bother going there now just because he returned to Tyria as less than a god?

EdwinLi.1284:

We never saw the end result of the war between Balthazar and Menzies

I am not so sure about this. Ever seen this picture?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Destroyed_world.jpg

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Maybe.

But the existence of the map in the dat files is by far not even an inkling of reason to believe we’d go to the Fissure of Woe. Unlike the Caudecus face dungeon, which was even in the game since release as it was part of the dungeon’s actual zone.

Fair point but I’m stressing it because I noticed a pattern of maps being brought into the game. So if the pattern holds up, we see FoW. If it doesn’t, then I guess the pattern ends there and I was wrong. However, I’m still convinced we’ll see FoW for reasons below.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Though I’m doubtful we’ll go to the Fissure of Woe at all. Based on lore, humans had been looking for the gods, and their realms would have been among the first they’d look – we know they have some tenuous access to the realms still, as we see Priestess Rhie pull a soul from the Underworld during the human storyline.

This would mean that Balthazar hadn’t been to his own realm in 250 years, so why would we bother going there now just because he returned to Tyria as less than a god?

I disagree. Humanity has had access to at least two of the gods’ realms for a number of years and not once did we come across them in their own realms. So we can’t definitively say whether he has or hasn’t been to his own realm in 250 years. Balthazar’s biggest enemy lore-wise has always been Menzies. We know Balthazar has been weakened, so logic dictates that this must have caused a shift in their never ending war. The likeliest outcome is we learn that Balthazar gathered more power to fend off Menzies who somehow got the upper hand in their war and took over FoW. We also know that at this point in the story, the PC really doesn’t not want a crazy god of fire and war on Tyria since said god has explicitly mentioned he doesn’t care about the fate of Tyria. So in an effort to save Tyria and return this crazy god back to where he came from, we will have to investigate what caused Balthazar to lose his powers. That to me sounds like a good enough reason to go to FoW.

All of this is what I think is the most likely case given what we know so far based on years of existing lore and recent story events. Of course, ANET can always shoehorn in a completely new enemy and your only reason to see FoW in that case would go out the window…

Konig Des Todes.2086:

…
Though I’m doubtful we’ll go to the Fissure of Woe at all. Based on lore, humans had been looking for the gods, and their realms would have been among the first they’d look – we know they have some tenuous access to the realms still, as we see Priestess Rhie pull a soul from the Underworld during the human storyline.

This would mean that Balthazar hadn’t been to his own realm in 250 years, so why would we bother going there now just because he returned to Tyria as less than a god?

Interesting line from Priestess Rhie in the mentioned story step (source):

Rhie: “Once, the Six Gods of the humans were very influential. As time passed, they pulled away—but they have not abandoned us.”
Player: “Where have they gone?”
Rhie: “No one knows. Not into the Mists, that’s for certain. Perhaps they simply want to allow us to decide our own fates.”

It’s just one line from one NPC, but the way she states it as a fact and her role as ‘foremost priest’ makes me believe she has good reasons or even proof to believe this. Now this was a few years ago, so there is no telling whether Balthazar might have returned to FoW, but for now I’ll assume he hasn’t been there at least until the start of GW2.

@Inc: Yes, that is the dialogue I was referring to quite specifically.
She is fairly confident in saying that the gods are “not into the Mists, that’s for certain.” and she has pulled souls from the Underworld.
I think those souls would know the relative state of the Underworld and could relay it to us.

Vesuvius.9874:

Fair point but I’m stressing it because I noticed a pattern of maps being brought into the game. So if the pattern holds up, we see FoW. If it doesn’t, then I guess the pattern ends there and I was wrong. However, I’m still convinced we’ll see FoW for reasons below.

Honestly there’s not much of a pattern.

We’ve seen four maps in the dat that never made it into game. Of those, one was confirmed to be a “practice map” (FoW map), one was was “scrapped and replaced because too much underwater content and it’s a pain getting one map to ‘wrap around’ another” (Lake Doric), and the other two (one at D’Alessio Seaboard, the other presumably a WvW map) have no hint of ever returning even in a replaced format.

I’d like to stress we were told of more scrapped maps that never got as far as the D’Alessio Seaboard one – including one that was south of Mount Maelstrom and one that was west of the path in Sparkfly Fen (“technically” replaced by Southsun Cove but only in location).

There is no real pattern here because of the two things returned, one of them was technically always in the game but never used (kind of like that long jumping puzzle in Caledon), and on top of that there are probably dozen maps that were scrapped for development time that have yet to return (we only know of four).

Vesuvius.9874:

I disagree. Humanity has had access to at least two of the gods’ realms for a number of years and not once did we come across them in their own realms. So we can’t definitively say whether he has or hasn’t been to his own realm in 250 years.

An individual who is clearly capable of pulling souls from the Mists and have done so more than the one time we saw her do so (as she has experience in doing so and knows that doing so would attract hostile attention) outright tells us that the gods are “Not into the Mists, that’s for certain.”

If the foremost priestess of Grenth pulled a soul from the Underworld, what would be among the first questions asked the first time done so? Probably “is Grenth there?” or “what is the state of the Underworld?”

Disagree if you want, but you’re disagreeing with our sole source of canon lore, and an actual reliable narrator as she’s an expert in the field.

Vesuvius.9874:

The likeliest outcome is we learn that Balthazar gathered more power to fend off Menzies who somehow got the upper hand in their war and took over FoW.

And whether or not Balthazar had been in the Fissure of Woe for the past 250 years is not confirmed by him losing it. Nor is there any reason to believe Menzies would remain in his conquered area rather than making his old area his throne of power (still) – if he’s a god now, why couldn’t he?

Best to seat yourself in a known land, rather than a land known by your still alive enemy. Menzies is treacherous, not idiotic.

This is, of course, assuming that the war remained in/around the Fissure of Woe and didn’t move on to whatever world beyond The Mists that the gods went.

Vesuvius.9874:

So in an effort to save Tyria and return this crazy god back to where he came from, we will have to investigate what caused Balthazar to lose his powers. That to me sounds like a good enough reason to go to FoW.

Or… do something far easier and pull a soul from the Fissure of Woe and ask.

Something they’ve probably done in the past 250 years given that the humans of Tyrians have the full capability of doing so.

OMG guys, reading all this post here and in the Lore section, is getting me so excited enough to even go back to GW1! I don’t remember being so interested in GW1 and GW2 story since Abaddon and Dhuum story! Can’t wait to see what happens next in LS!