Guild Wars 2

I’d have to agree with the observation that Taimi’s status (being a disabled underage girl who’s regularly run off into danger without anything worse happening than being scared) does bring down the tension a bit. It makes it highly unlikely that Taimi will ever suffer a violent death, let alone be stuffed into a fridge to fuel another character’s development like Eir was (and like people saw coming months away).

From the PC’s perspective, I don’t think it’s that irresponsible to bring her along. I think the PC would probably prefer that she stayed in fairly safe areas… but Tyria’s history and the threat of the dragons has shown that nowhere is truly ‘safe’. Sure, she’d probably be safer in Fort Resolve(1), but I think the PC has enough awareness of Taimi’s character to recognise that attempting to sequester her in a Pact strongpoint is going to be of no avail. With that in mind, it’s a heck of a lot safer for her to be with a powerful group than on her own.

Furthermore, she is an asset to the team. She’s an asset that comes with some liabilities (which the PC is… diplomatic about), but while I don’t think she’s smarter than the rest combined as some in this thread has claimed(2), she does have some unique knowledge and skills that means it is worthwhile to have her along (think of all the movies and such where the exploration team has a non-military advisor along who can be a liability at times but has specialised knowledge that is often key to success – Taimi is essentially an extreme example of this trope). If it weren’t for Scruffy, Taimi probably would be more of a liability than an asset. With Scruffy, however, she has enough self-defence capability that she generally won’t be a liability in a fight. (Yes, she’s vulnerable outside of the safety of her golem. With the exception of the Inquest’s EMP or other attacks specifically tuned against golems, however, any attack that can disable the golem would probably leave any of the other team members too injured to fight in turn.)

In an ideal world, of course, you’d have the golem piloted by someone who can fight outside of the golem if the golem is disabled. However, if you consider that having Taimi along is worth more than the hassle of protecting her, then having the golem substantially reduces that hassle. If you have a team of fighters that are competent without a golem, an advisor that is useful to have but useless in a fight without the golem, and a golem, then the logical thing to do is to put the advisor inside the golem. That removes the liability, and results in more overall combat power than having a competent fighter locked up in the golem. (Besides, I don’t think Taimi would let anyone else have what is effectively her overgunned wheelchair, and given the dangers of the jungle, in most cases leaving her alone, with or without the golem, is probably more dangerous both for her (in case she gets jumped without the support of the team) and for the rest of the team (in case something happens where the presence of the golem might be the difference between life or death – Braham’s scripted near-death scene was a bit ridiculous IMO, but in most circumstances having one more fighter reduces the chance of someone dying).

(1)Not Rata Sum. Even if she was willing to remain somewhere where Phlunt could claim any other discovery she makes, the Inquest have freedom to operate in Rata Sum and it’s possible that they know that Taimi has knowledge of interest to them. I wouldn’t bet on them not having designs on prodigynapping her, and given the attitude shown regarding her by Phlunt’s entourage in Season 2, I also wouldn’t bet on the asuran authorities going to any great lengths to help her if something did happen.

(2)Considering just the biconics, Marjory has her investigative skills, Kasmeer is smarter than she puts on, particularly in the field of magic, Rox has her fieldcraft, and Canach has his own skills and cunning.

Harper.4173:

That aside – I doubt many of GW2’s players even care – I’ve been in very hardcore raid groups ( supposedly hardcore raiders should be very invested in the game) that didn’t even know who Matthias was, why he’s there and why you fight him.

Assuming that raiders will know the lore is a very kittenumption. Raiders and lore people tend to have very different motivations – raiders tend to fall into the “Achievers” category of the Bartle Test, while lore people tend to fall into the Explorers category. While there is some crossover, assuming somebody pays any attention to the lore because they’ve spent ours learning the mechanic of a boss does not apply. If anything, a lore person is possibly more likely to grow bored and find other things to do (cough).

It’s part of the reason why some people are ticked off that a lot of important lore has had a tendency to be put behind the sort of content that requires coordinating a groups and hours of beating your head against the wall to get past.