Guild Wars 2

I don’t believe the game has ever explicitly told us just how way points work. But it seems to be becoming a plot point with the recent Living Story. As I’m sure many people have noticed by now, vines have shot up near way points, and are actively leeching magic from the way points.

So how do way points work exactly? There are two books at the Durmand Priory that have something oddly in common. One is about ley lines, and one is about way points.

Ley Lines

As the book on ley lines explains, a ley line can sometimes become disturbed or blocked, causing it to be rerouted. The book compares this to the way a flow of water may be rerouted by a large rock. The cut scene when Scarlet’s drill (The Breech Maker) hit the ley line, was an excellent example of that. The ley line was rerouted, and ran straight into a sleeping Mordremoth.

Way Points

The book on way points explains that the placement of way points is very important. Sometimes the flow of magic can get blocked (notice a resemblance there?) and cause the way point to fail. This is a problem that can spread across the network to neighboring way points, causing them too to fail. This is why way points are sometimes taken down, and placed elsewhere.

Now obviously we can see the effect of this in Brisban Wildlands. A vine is leeching magic off of a way point, and many other way points in the area are flickering because of it. But the book describes situations in which the cause of the failure is unclear. So where are way points getting their magic from? And why is placement so important? If geography is a factor, could it be that way points are linked to ley lines, and that any disturbance of the ley line, also causes the way point to fail?

Why is Mordremoth leeching off way points?

One of my guildies brought up an interesting point. If Mordremoth is sitting right on top of a ley line, why would he bother to leech from way points? Well it all depends on his motives. It could be that he’s simply moving east, maybe towards the Pact. The failures of the way points so far seem to indicate an east-ward motion. It could be that he’s simply snacking along the way, while his roots/spores shoot out far and wide like an invasive weed (I’ve made that comparison before). The way points might be an easy access point to snack on magic, but I don’t think the way points are Mordremoth’s actual goal. If he keeps this up however, he might disable some way points completely.

Shrug. I hope they do not try to tie Waypoints and (gag) ley lines, it would be an unbelievable coincidence to assume that every settlement in game just happened to have one handy. Can’t say that settlements grew up around waypoints since many of them predate them.

Vekk stated the CTC was located near the Great Destroyer “it bleeds magic” so, by extension Asuran tech benefits from concentrated magic, but ley line connections cannot explain Asuran gates and waypoints functioning in as many settlements as they do. Awfully “convenient”.

I often wonder how Vekks era Asura could recognize something “bleeding magic” and yet be blissfully unaware of “ley lines”. Particularly as they had an extended subterranean civilization.

Arent the waypoints powered by power crystals just like the Asura Gates? This would mean they at least radiate a bit of energy, enough to attract Mordremoth. It looks like he is snacking a bit and the main purpose of the east-ward going vines seems, to me, sapping energy from the world. It is also a way of ArenaNet to express that a treath is coming. I mean, waypoints are really obvious so no one will not see it.

Blurk.6231:

Arent the waypoints powered by power crystals just like the Asura Gates?

If that is the case, then why are they affected by the place they are built?

I don’t think Waypoints need the Ley-Lines to work and the network of Waypoints isn’t built on the Ley-Lines. But waypoints use magic and are connected, building a network through which magic flows – similar to ley-lines. if something is strong enough to block the magic flow of the ley-lines it stands to reason that it blocks the waypoint-magic too – because the magic flowing through the waypoint-network should be far less compared to the amount of magic flowing through ley-lines.

additionally in my opinion setting up a working waypoint should work better or worse depending on how well magic can flow in general in that specific region (ley-lines are just really great and important flows of magic, not the only ones). This could explain why the placement is important and any change in it – be it strong and deep enough to affect ley-lines or just something like an asuran laboratory that disturbs the magic in close proximity – can make a change to waypoint locations necessary to ensure that the network continues to work.

My idea on the thing with the vines:
they could be spreading along or even through the ley-lines consuming magic. on places where a waypoint happens to be on one of those ley-lines the vines extend to the surface and start to suck up magic from the waypoint and therefore the waypoint-system as well, interfering with the network around the affected waypoint. And thinking of the size some vines in Drytop have compared to the ones at the waypoints, we are probably just seeing quite small branches of the main structure of vines that could be advancing underground (even those in Drytop could just be bigger branches of the main structure).

on a side note: could it be that the Zephyrites crashed because they rely on magic to fly and Drytop was mostly sucked dry of magic, similar to how there are air pockets that cause turbulences for planes?

GaruruMoon.4153:

on a side note: could it be that the Zephyrites crashed because they rely on magic to fly and Drytop was mostly sucked dry of magic, similar to how there are air pockets that cause turbulences for planes?

That would kind of contradict the evidence we are given during the story, of a deliberate attack. Plus, I suspect they carry a source of magic on board their ships. I don’t even think we have good reason to assume there is such a thing as magical turbulence, that could crash one of their ships.

Back on topic, I think it is highly possible that you are right, and that these vines are much larger underground, and follow the ley lines to either their source, or to the hub. I’m not sure if your explanation covers the issue of failing way points entirely though, but it is a nice hypothesis. There has got to be a way for a way point to transfer magic from one point to the next, otherwise, how would they transport people? And if so, this transport happens obviously invisibly, much like ley lines are invisible (at least I assume they are), and this network could be disturbed, like ley lines.

This is my theory on these isues:

Waypoints and ley lines
I think that waypoint needs to be place on ley lines (or close to them) so that the waypoints can drain magic from it to sustain themselves. The balance is very fragile though and can be easily disrupted. This in my opinion makes sense since waypoint are ellusive and therefore can’t be filled with magical power. So a waypoint on a bare spot will try to get magic from a waypoint on a good spot disrupting the balance and causing multiple nodes to fail.

Mordremeth and way points
I believe that Modremeth’s range of influence is limited: he cannot control an/or recognize beings under his command past a certain range. So he uses those leylines to send seeds through them which automatically attach to the first waypoint they pass. He then extends his network by using the grown vines to send the next batch of seeds to the next waypoint(s) in the line.The vines drain magic from the ley line they are sitting on and therefor cause the node to flicker since they drain magic from the ley line. These vines can send messages back to Mordremeth and are identified by the waypoint they are attached to. In this way Mordremeth can send his presence throughout Tyria with no problem. So Mordremoth is not draining the waypoints of magic rather he uses them as an anchor point for his seeds and as a way to locate his vines greographically.

Tim.6450:

Waypoints and ley lines
I think that waypoint needs to be place on ley lines (or close to them) so that the waypoints can drain magic from it to sustain themselves. The balance is very fragile though and can be easily disrupted. This in my opinion makes sense since waypoint are ellusive and therefore can’t be filled with magical power. So a waypoint on a bare spot will try to get magic from a waypoint on a good spot disrupting the balance and causing multiple nodes to fail.

This makes some sense. This could mean that a way point that used to work just fine, could suddenly start failing due to the ley line underneath it being blocked.

Tim.6450:

The vines drain magic from the ley line they are sitting on and therefor cause the node to flicker since they drain magic from the ley line.

No, the book at the priory informs us that way points flicker because an adjacent way point in the network is failing. If one way point fails, all adjacent way points start to show signs of failing too.

Tim.6450:

So Mordremoth is not draining the waypoints of magic rather he uses them as an anchor point for his seeds and as a way to locate his vines greographically.

However, we can literally see in Brisban that the vines ARE draining magic directly from the way point. You can literally see blue magic spiral down the vines.

There is a giant moving vine in the new area in Brisban which also seems to drain a “natural” magic outbreak.

If waypoints are connected to ley lines then there are a lot ley lines below Tyria, because we have waypoints well spread across the map. It is a closer assumption to say that they cannot be placed on a leyline, but we still miss enough evidence to say for sure. The ley lines are hard to track, even for Scarlet, and we see most times (again) the number six related to them. There might be just six, but nothing is sure. I hope Taimi will shed some light while she goes through Scarlet’s stuff.