Guild Wars 2

“The rock dogs and devourers now stack vulnerability and bleeding respectively, and the Branded Lieutenant— and the newly added Branded Ravager (a minotaur) —just love to knock you down in their boss’s area attacks.”

With the update to Shatterer coming on the 26th, could the next expansion bring us face to face with the crystal dragon. To avenge Snaff and allow Eir to rest in peace?
Or perhaps Anet just made that model for the boss fight? Discuss!

Are we sure it’s a new model? There’ve been branded minotaurs about since launch, after all.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

Are we sure it’s a new model? There’ve been branded minotaurs about since launch, after all.

That paragraph ends with:

(Special thanks to Sean Hughes for his help on the new Branded species.)

So, there is definitely something new. However, the ravager is not the only new enemy mentioned, so that could refer the new enemies attacking the seige, or the patrolling waves, or any combiation of the three.

He’s an event/skill designer, though. Any special thanks to him doesn’t require a new model for said species.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

He’s an event/skill designer, though. Any special thanks to him doesn’t require a new model for said species.

Interesting we’ll see the direction they take in S3, looking forward to the updated shatterer though.

Just saying, apparently Mordy’s death resulted in a huge energy release (because of all that ley energy) that made the remaining Elder Dragons more powerful. Hence the Shatterer’s buff: Kralkatorrik made his champion better with his new energy.
This also explains the Teq buff: the energy leaving Zhaitan’s domain after his death made Tequatl stronger.

We actually don’t know why The Shatterer is stronger yet – after all, Mordremoth is a far distance away from Kralkatorrik, and per the final cinemtic of HoT any magic heading in Kralk’s direction would pass through/nearby Rata Sum, the Grove, and Tequatl’s hunting grounds first. However, the articles release do indicate or at least imply that it is story relevant.

We’re always open to opportunities to go back to existing content and make improvements. The game has evolved a lot over the years and a lot of the new systems or mechanics we’ve developed could absolutely be incorporated into existing content to make it more fun and challenging. That would especially be something we’d pursue in situations where we can tie it in with the story we’re telling in a Living World release, either directly or as an ambient reaction to what’s going on in the world. So while this wasn’t intended to be a “test” it may not be the last time we do something like this, and like with any project we undertake, we’d certainly use the lessons learned during this project to improve how we accomplish similar goals in the future.

Emphasis mine.

They said there is a story with Tequatle… however all we got up till now was: nothing

No follow up for over a year, even though several storylines went close to territories that could tell us things about it… like the durmand priory…

In that regard might also be just mechanical and not lorewise

Jaken.6801:

They said there is a story with Tequatle… however all we got up till now was: nothing

No follow up for over a year, even though several storylines went close to territories that could tell us things about it… like the durmand priory…

In that regard might also be just mechanical and not lorewise

Yeah ANet seems to put emphasis on mechanics over story. Oh I’m sure there is a story behind everything, but when crunch time comes I think they prioritize mechanics over story i.e. instead of adding more dialog, some more pieces of text etc. they’d rather focus on polishing expanding mechanics.
I guess it somewhat makes sense, after all you play a game but it does tend to sacrifice (in my case at least) immersion. I engage with the mechanics, say pushing a lane in Dragon Stand but it really doesn’t mean anything for me beyond trying to get a reward at the end.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

We actually don’t know why The Shatterer is stronger yet – after all, Mordremoth is a far distance away from Kralkatorrik, and per the final cinemtic of HoT any magic heading in Kralk’s direction would pass through/nearby Rata Sum, the Grove, and Tequatl’s hunting grounds first. However, the articles release do indicate or at least imply that it is story relevant.

Leylines are everywhere. There’s also a dynamic event in Ascalon somewhere that involves Mordrem. (I think it’s in Diessa, but not sure.)

Iron Marches. It was part of Season 2.

Even if ley lines are everywhere, if you pay close attention to the cinematic depicting Mordremoth’s death, and the explosion of energy, you can denote that his energy traveled along four ley lines that roughly head north, south, east, and west.

The north burst of energy went through Tarir and the Forsaken Thicket. The southern one would have gone in the general direction of Abaddon’s Mouth, unlikely to have gone towards Kralkatorrik or the Shatterer afterwards. The western one definitely did not go to Kralkatorrik unless he swooped around the entire Central Tyria after killing Glint and Snaff. And the one that headed east would pass through Rata Sum and The Grove before anywhere else – and it would be surprising if the Pale Tree didn’t at least attempt to absorb all that magic. By the time it would reach Kralkatorrik (if it did), it would have been diluted by distance and having passed through so many waypoints (that run off of ley energy without realizing it) and the Grove – if not other magic consuming entities or objects.

However, we have the matter of Glint’s egg, which we have been told will be a focal point for S3. And then we have the Desert Gate in FoR, which would be a natural entry point for a Kralkatorrik-themed expansion.

It seems to me that the pieces are already in place.

To be fair, though, we have the probable White Mantle/definite bandit activity in the latest story content, and the bridge in northern Brisban is just as natural an entry point to anything set up there. There’s also the charr barricade in southeastern Maelstrom, but when we got a new map out that way back in S1, it wasn’t used at all. There’re a lot of pieces in place- enough that we’ve never reliably been able to guess which will be used next, or if the next story will use them at all.

@KestrelGirl, you might also be remembering a map-wide Mordrem event than ran in Diessa shortly before HoT’s release. Alas, it was temporary content, so you won’t be seeing it again. Either Diessa or Iron Marches, though, the mordrem activity has still been a fair distance away from the Shatterer.

“Charr barricade in southeastern Maelstrom”?

EDIT: Found it! Cool, and it’s been here since S1, huh? I’ve done that map on several characters and never saw it.

That’s what I love about this game. There’s always something new to find.

Aaron Ansari.1604:

@KestrelGirl, you might also be remembering a map-wide Mordrem event than ran in Diessa shortly before HoT’s release. Alas, it was temporary content, so you won’t be seeing it again. Either Diessa or Iron Marches, though, the mordrem activity has still been a fair distance away from the Shatterer.

It’s the one in the Iron Marches, lol. I do know that the Diessa event happened, but that was actually before I started playing GW2.

so much people to avenge with Kralkatorrik : Glint, Almorra’s troup and Snaff !

a lot of Righteousness here !